There are several reasons why Firefox is popular with web users. Firefox is always evolving, becoming cleaner, faster and safer.

Thanks to a busy community, the open source project is continually being improved and further developed. A lot of add-ons, which you can use to increase functionality and efficiency, play a part in the popularity and widespread uptake of the Mozilla Firefox browser.

While Firefox 24 added pop-out chat windows and version 25 added support for the Web Audio API, Firefox 26 and 27 didn’t come with any major new features that will dramatically change the way you use the Internet.

They did include various security fixes, usability refinements and speed improvements to make Mozilla’s dependable web browser even better and a must-download piece of software for any PC system.

For example, all Java plug-in content is now deemed unsafe and is blocked by default in these versions. Firefox now puts security first and will ask you whether you want to run a Java applet every time you encounter one. Some banks still use Java for their Internet banking services and there is no danger in using Java on trusted websites. Mozilla’s thinking? It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Along with beefed-up security measures, Firefox is also one of the most lightweight web browsers in terms of memory usage.

The way the browser handles images has been updated since the last version. Firefox now matches the EXIF orientation information contained within standalone JPEG images and doesn’t decode images that aren’t immediately visible to the user. Both of these changes help to improve overall page load times.

Other improvements in Firefox are smaller - the password manager now supports script-generated password fields, MP3 decoding is now supported on PCs running the Windows XP operating system, while H.264 video compression is supported on Linux (but only if the appropriate gstreamer plugins are installed).

The latest version also adds support for the new Firefox SocialAPI, the SPDY 3.1 protocol, and TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is being lined up as the successor to web security stalwart SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). There are also various fixes, developer features that you will never notice, and vulnerability patches.

You can find a full list of the changes and alterations that appear in the latest version of Firefox in the official release notes.

Verdict: No other browser unifies speed, security, comfort and extensibility as well as Firefox.